SEVERAL cities remained in the dark as Venezuela’s worst power and communications outage endangered hospital patients and forced schools and businesses to close.
Venezuelans have grown begrudgingly accustomed to power cuts, but nothing like the one that hit during rush hour on Thursday evening last week, sending thousands of people on long night-time treks in the dark to their homes.
Electricity had returned to some parts of Caracas nearly 24 hours after lights, phones and the internet stopped working, but the blackout marked another harsh blow to a country paralysed by turmoil as the power struggle between Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido stretches into its second month.
Thursday’s outage reached virtually every part of the oil-rich country of 31 million, which was once Latin America’s wealthiest but is now beset by shortages and hyperinflation projected by the International Monetary Fund to reach a staggering 10m per cent this year.
One hospital advocate reported there were at least two confirmed deaths due to the outage: a baby in a neonatal unit and a patient at the children’s hospital.
Venezuelans with chronic conditions such as diabetes searched for ice to preserve their limited supplies of medicines.
The blackout promptly became a point of dispute between Maduro, who blamed sabotage engineered by the “imperialist United States”, and US-backed opposition leader Guaido, who said state corruption and mismanagement that have left the electrical grid in shambles were the cause.
Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly, returned from a Latin American tour to Venezuela in order to escalate his campaign to topple Maduro and hold elections and called for new protests yesterday.
Elsewhere in the city, Dr Luz Ardila Suarez, a gynaecologist, said many staffers at the hospital where she works were still on the job on Friday morning last week because they could not get home the previous night.
Like other hospitals, she said the facility was relying on generators but only had enough fuel for another day or two and that she was especially worried about patients in intensive care.
Dr Julio Castro, one of the leaders of the non-profit Doctors for Health, reported on Twitter that about half of 23 hospitals surveyed were grappling with failing generators.
Another health advocacy group, CODEVIDA, reported that thousands of dialysis patients were going without treatment as a result of the outage.
Advocates were particularly concerned about patients who rely on respirators and the lack of air conditioning in several hospitals, which is needed to keep facilities cool in order to prevent the spread of bacteria.
By early Friday afternoon, residents and pro-government state broadcaster VTV reported that power was returning to parts of Caracas.
Traffic lights in several neighbourhoods were back on, while at one office building the electricity flickered to life and then turned off.
Guaido and Maduro planned rival demonstrations as they seek to energise supporters. “The electricity war declared and directed by the imperialist United States against our people will be overcome!” Maduro tweeted.
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